News

Get All JASSMed About It

—John. A. Tirpak5/16/2013

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The Air Force has asked Lockheed Martin about increasing its Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile buy or adjusting its buy mix, said Frank St. John, company vice president of missiles and combat maneuver systems. "Right now, the plan is about 50-50," said St. John on May 14 during a company media event in Crystal City Va. That means the Air Force has been intending to split its annual purchase of 240
rounds between the baseline JASSM model and the
extended-range variant. The two versions have ranges of about 400 km and nearly
1000 km, respectively. However, as the Air Force confronts a worsening
anti-access, area-denial threat and only one of its three bomber types—the
stealthy B-2—can survive enemy air defenses, standoff weapons will be more
essential. St. John said Lockheed Martin has the capacity to build "up to
360 a year" of either variant. The Air Force may want to shift the bulk of
the buy to the longer legged JASSM-ER as its nonstealthy bombers must stand off
at increasingly longer distances. "We are looking at different
mixes," said St. John, adding that the company could cut in a bigger ER share
with Lot 13 and Lot 14. The Air Force's program of record calls for 4,900 total
JASSMs.